All the world’s a stage: Travel and theater do mix

We’re counting down now – to London, that is. In about 10 days we’re off to celebrate two very important milestones in the lives of the Discerning Travelers.

On October 10 we’ll spend our 25th wedding anniversary (OK, we weren’t exactly ingénues when we married!) at a very special theatrical performance. When you have offspring who are performers (and we have two), there are many memorable performances through the years, but this one is especially poignant. Our now 23-year-old ballet dancer son has moved on – from Monte Carlo to London – to revisit the reason he started dancing in the first place. He’s a triple-threat musical theater performer. No longer even a wannabe performer, he is currently touring the UK in the newest remount of Cabaret starring pop idol Will Young, a production that opens in London’s West End at the Savoy Theatre on October 3. And on October 10 we’ll celebrate our son’s debut and 25 years of wonderful marriage. We’ll be having a glass or two of champagne late that evening for sure!

This planning has made us consider the joys of taking the time to see theatre productions when traveling. We can’t now remember the first time we attended a theatrical performance when away, but it was probably Cats in New York on Broadway (the US equivalent to London’s famed West End).

We’ve had a number of very memorable experiences. The first was on a trip in 2006 to London. It was spring break and we had son Ian with us. Seventeen-years old at the time, he was at the National Ballet School (Canada) and of course we had to plan on taking in a number of performances. Usually when we travel we don’t ever book theater tickets of any kind for the first day or night of arrival – you can never tell when you’ll be delayed and these tickets can be astronomically expensive. This time we took a chance, though. After applying some adolescent persuasion to his parents, Ian convinced us that we had to see famed French ballerina Sylvie Guillem in the Royal Ballet’s production of Romeo & Juliet at Covent Garden. The only hitch was that her very last performance was the evening that we arrived on an overnight flight very early that morning.

Ian takes in the beautiful interior of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden in London.

Our usual approach to dealing with potential jet lag is to immediately get ourselves on the new time zone and carry on through the day as normally as possible, going to bed fairly early so that we can make up for lost sleep (no matter how much we spend on airline tickets to have space and flat-out beds, sleeping is usually a fleeting dream). If we were going to experience this R & J, however, we’d have to prop our eyes open for some hours that night – which we did.

What a terrific experience – but it will go down in our family history as the time we coined the phrase “DTP” – in other words, “drink the poison.” This particular production of R & J is excruciating for one particular scene at the very end of the ballet. Romeo takes so long to decide to “drink the poison” as he writhes in the pain of seeing his Juliet dead (at least he believes she’s dead – we all know the sordid story). All we could think of as we watched him on stage was, “For the love of God, Romeo, just drink the poison and put us out of our misery. We all know how this ends!” Well, of course he did drink it, he died, Juliet woke up, writhed in anguish and stabbed herself to death. Then we could sleep!

Ian at 17 in front of the Victoria Palace Theatre in London where we saw Billy Elliott. In just over a week he’ll make his own West End debut just down the road at the Savoy Theatre.

Over the years we’ve seen musicals like Thoroughly Modern Millie and Wicked in New York; Billy Elliott and Phantom of the Opera in London (actually we’ve seen Phantom several different places), and its sequel Love Never Dies. We’ve seen The Thirty Nine Steps in London (highly recommend that one), and ballets galore. One of the most memorable for us was the Matthew Bourne rendition of Swan Lake that we happened upon when we arrived in New York last year. As we sat in the bar at the Renaissance Times Square where we were staying, we noticed a very large billboard outside the window advertising this production, and it was in town for only a few days while were were there. This production is the one that Billy Elliott is in during the final frames of the movie and casts men as the swans. We had to see it.

We approached the concierge and asked him if it might be possible to procure tickets. With a twinkle in his eye, he told us that “anything is possible.” And so he did. But at the same time, we also learned that the concierges in New York hotels have access to online coupons that you can use for same-day tickets at the theaters thus avoiding that horrible, long line at the TKTS both in Times Square. It was worth every cent we paid.

Of course, we can’t forget all of the ballets we have seen in Monte Carlo when Ian danced there for three years. That included world premieres of Scheherazade on New Year’s Eve 2010, and last year’s new Swan Lake. And then we followed the company to Los Angeles last year and saw them on tour.

Theater experiences when traveling are entertaining and illuminating for more than just experiencing the production itself. The theater buildings themselves are so very interesting. The old (Covent Garden in London, The Garnier in the Casino building in Monte Carlo, most Broadway and West End theaters), the new (The Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo, the Marquis on Broadway, the Segerstrom Center for the Performing Arts in Orange County California – so impressive).

Then of course there is the audience. Audiences around the world are also interestingly different. Ask anyone who has performed in live theater of dance in different countries and they’ll tell you that the response of the audience is very cultural. In some countries, at a ballet, there is no applause whatsoever between scenes or at the end of specific performances – the applause comes at the end of the act. This can be unnerving for audience members who are used to applauding whenever impressed by a performance, and you can just imagine what the performers must be thinking. In some places, a standing ovation is extremely uncommon, saved for only the most astonishing performances; in other places, it seems any performance short of god-awful inspires the audience members to jump to their feet. You just have to go along with the prevailing cultural response.

Les Ballets de Monte Carlo takes a bow at the end of the world premiere of Jean-Christophe Maillot’s Swan Lake at the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo in late 2011.

We usually buy our most important theater tickets online before we leave to avoid disappointment. Often these days you can simply print off the ticket and the bar code is right there, like an online boarding pass. If you have time, you can have the tickets mailed, but that can be dicey if you don’t leave enough time. You can also pick them up at the theater when you get there – but remember to take with you some identification and the credit card you used to purchase online. And remember to book it into your day’s plans unless you want to wait in that line at the theater before the performance.

However you buy your tickets, just do it. It will be one of the most memorable parts of your travel experiences.

We’re now just back fron London once again and had the pleasure of visitng several venerable west end theatres: the Savoy and St. Martin’s for two. Wonderful experiences all around — and not just the productions (Cabaret & The Mousetrap) as you suggest. Thanks for stopping by!